Description
Book Synopsis"A worthy addition to the library of resistance." —Kirkus
"Dorfman’s critique is personal, intellectual, devastating, and at times bitingly funny." —New York Journal of Books Combining elements of memoir, political theory, and literary criticism, Ariel Dorfman’s
Homeland Security Ate My Speech is an emotionally raw yet measured assessment of the United States after the election of Donald Trump. Dorfman, writing with a bifurcated Latino-American identity, highlights the troubling parallels between Trump and repressive regimes of the past. Specifically, Dorfman relates the election of Trump to the CIA-led coup that installed Pinochet as dictator in Chile: an event that upended Dorfman’s life, as well as the fate of the country. With corruption and repression looming, he wonders, can the United States avoid the same kind of political interference it practiced in the past?
Reflecting Dorfman’s virtuosity across genres, the essays of
Homeland Security Ate My Speech are concise, yet highly original and playful; one takes the form of a letter from a sixteenth-century King of Spain to Donald Trump, praising him for his intolerance, and urging a revival of the Inquisition, while another begins with Dorfman’s memory of seeing a monster movie as a child ("I can remember gripping my mother’s hand tight") and segues into a thoughtful meditation on Trump via Mary Shelley’s novel
Frankenstein. Dorfman brings a rich array of literary references to his discussion of America’s current malaise; other authors he invokes include Faulkner, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Melville, Lewis Carroll, and Dave Eggers.
Trade ReviewPraise for Homeland Security Ate My Speech "A worthy addition to the library of resistance." —
Kirkus "Dorfman’s critique is personal, intellectual, devastating, and at times bitingly funny." —
New York Journal of Books Praise for Ariel Dorfman "A literary grandmaster." —
Time "One of the greatest novelists coming out of Latin America." —
Newsweek "A world novelist of the first order." —
The Washington Post "[Dorfman] has written movingly and often brilliantly of the cultural dislocations and political fractures of his dual heritage." —
The New York Times Selected Awards The Kennedy Center/American Express New Plays Award, 1988, for
Widows Roger L. Stevens Award, Extraordinary Playwrighting, 1991, for
Reader Time Out Award, 1991, for best play in London,
Death and the Maiden Sir Laurence Olivier Award, 1992, for best play in London,
Death and the Maiden Literary Lion, New York Public Library, 1992
2001 Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Honorary Degrees Illinois Wesleyan University, Doctor of Humane Letters, 1989
Wooster College, Doctor of Letters, 1991
Bradford College, Doctor of Humane Letters, 1993
American University, Doctor of Humane Letters, 2001
Franklin and Marshall College, Doctor of Humane Letters, 2011
Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION: GRIEVING FOR AMERICA
PART ONE: THE RISE OF TRUMP
1. Phillip II, the sixteenth century Spanish Monarch, writes to his Excellency Donald Trump
2. America Meets Frankenstein
3. My mother and Trump’s border
4. Latin American Food and the Failure of Trump’s Wall
5. Faulkner’s Question for America
PART TWO: THE JUDGMENT OF HISTORY
1. Now, America, You Know How Chile Felt.
2.The River Kwai passes through the Latin America and the Potomac: what it feels like to be tortured.
3. Words of encouragement for Donald Trump from James Buchanan, the worst President in U.S. history.
4. A message from the end of the world.
5. Mission Akkomplished: From Comrade Bush to Tovaritch Trump.
PART THREE: MODELS OF RESISTANCE FROM THE PAST
1. Martin Luther King marches on
2. Searching for Mandela.
3. The Truth that Made Her Free
4. Reading Cervantes in Captivity
5. Revisiting Melville in Chile
PART FOUR: WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
1. Homeland Security Ate My Speech.
2. Alice in Leftland: Will You, Won’t You Dance?
3. They’re Watching Us: So What?
4. How we overcame tyranny before.
